Taxidermy Storage

[D-Orcutt]

Looking at building a trophy room in the next year or so, has anyone stored finished taxidermy in a climate controlled storage unit before. I have a few pretty good hunts coming up and I’m out of wall space what’s the best way to store finished mounts for a year or so I live in northwest Arkansas so we have all the seasons and it’s humid at times.

 

[dchum]

Following along.

Moving soon and gonna have to put some mounts in some indoor “climatized” units

 

[Stetsonham]

Taxidermist here. You should be good to go as long as its climate controlled, do not put them in a storage unit if its not. Those boxes get way to hot if they aren't controlled.

 

[Stetsonham]

Something I also recommend is once you get them out of storage and back together with all your mounts bug bomb the whole area in case you picked up moths at the storage facility. I know a guy that lost most of his mounts from picking up moths at another location then bringing them back to his trophy room.
I just get the ones from Walmart, if you have pilot lights in the area that needs treated there are bug bombs that are safe for that as well.

 

[D-Orcutt]

Taxidermist here. You should be good to go as long as its climate controlled, do not put them in a storage unit if its not. Those boxes get way to hot if they aren't controlled.

Would it be better to build a plywood wall and hang the mounts so they would have air flow or leave them crated?

 

[Green Chile]

I definitely have a lot of mounts in a climate controlled storage unit. It's not cold in there but it's probably 80 in the summer when it's over 100 outside. I haven't seen evidence of rodents/bugs there but that's something to keep in mind. I don't have them laying on the ground but they are up on boxes not that it would make a lot of difference. Mine are not crated but are open. I've had them there for about 3 years without issues so far. It's not a permanent solution but it's working so far.

 

[Hunt anything]

I stored approximately 50 waterfowl mounts and 1/2 doz deer heads for about 6 months in a CC storage building while we built our house in the early 90’s.I was most worried about the waterfowl mounts fearing any grease left in the skin would leach through. No problems at all and this was August - February on the Alabama Gulf Coast.

 

[Stetsonham]

Would it be better to build a plywood wall and hang the mounts so they would have air flow or leave them crated?

If you can hang them I would personally avoid the chance of mice. Most storage places are good but I’m always leaning towards safe then sorry.

 

[Stetsonham]

Kinda hard to see in this photo, but I like to use at 3/4” sheet of osb and 4x4x8 post for legs the build feet at the bottom of the posts for stability. This hold a lot of mounts and if you hang something real heavy put a 2x4 block on the backside and hang through the 3/4 into the block

 

[Ridge Runner]

Just seen this post.

I had to put my trophies into a CC storage unit. As I put some of them in the storage unit I loosely placed plastic bags over them to minimize dirt and dust. The others were placed back into their original shipping crate with the lid raised off the create about an 1 to 2 inches to allow for air flow.

Those outside the crate are on furniture, boxes, and containers so the mounts are not on the floor.

It'll be a while before I can get them out of storage and into their permanent home. I update when I get them out and hung if this was a good way to store mounts.

 

[buck wild]

You MUST keep moth/bug bombs going while being stored. I lost two older mounts once bc I let the moth balls dissipate because I was going to get then out “ in a couple more months”. It doesn’t take long for the damage to occur.